


Anchovies, Anchovies

by Qzil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qzil/pseuds/Qzil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Into every generation a slayer is born. This time, it just happens to be Hael Novak, and the vampires seem more intent on kissing her than killing her. Buffy the Vampires Slayer AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchovies, Anchovies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for MSR Halloween. The prompt was 'cemeteries,' so of course my mind immediately jumped to a BTVS AU.

Hael swallowed hard as she stared up at the heavy, iron gates of the cemetery. Cold wind blew her coal-black hair around her face, and she sighed and absently tied it back, slipping her stake out of her pocket when she was finished. Her watcher had instructed her to dress for stealth, as vampires were attracted to bright colors, so she’d donned her sister’s maroon sweater and the darkest pair of jeans she owned. Her sneakers, thankfully, made almost no noise on the pavement, but she was still nervous about stepping on fallen leaves or tripping over wayward sticks. 

It was her first time out alone, after all. 

She’d only been called a month before, and her watcher, a tough, older man named Bobby, had been reluctant to send her out on her own. He’d been with her every step of the way so far, standing to the side of her fights and offering her advice on how to kill the vampires that came her way. In between fights, Bobby had explained to her the history of the slayer line, and that it was her sacred duty to fight the evil that seemed to gravitate toward Sunnydale. 

But being out alone was an entirely different animal. Until she’d been called, she’d been a normal sixteen-year-old girl, and her life had been simple. Her main concerns in life had been getting through her sophomore year of school without failing and maybe trying out for the cheerleading squad. Now she was part of something that was more ancient and powerful and terrible than she could ever imagine. 

Bobby had told her not to tell anyone, but Hael hadn’t been able to keep completely silent. Her older sister, Anna, was the only one who knew, and it turned out to be a good thing. She and Anna shared a room, which meant that Anna could cover for her when she snuck out at night to patrol or train. Their brother, Castiel, would be no help. Castiel believed in telling the truth and being completely honest with their parents. Hael admired his attitude, but admitted that it was impractical. There were some things that Naomi Novak just didn’t need to know. 

Hael took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

“Now or never,” she muttered to herself. The night wasn’t getting any younger, after all. 

She stepped through the open gate. All around her the air immediately seemed to quiet. Hael tried not to think about the fact that most slayers died before they reached eighteen, and that, even if they made it out of high school, it was very rare for a slayer to reach thirty. It wasn’t fair, really, that one girl was expected to go up against all of the forces of darkness. A fleet would be better, in her opinion. 

Stepping cautiously around headstones, Hael kept her hand loosely curled around her stake as she walked. She had a few spares tucked into her small bag, since vampires tended to take things with them when they were dusted, but she didn’t think she’d be out too long tonight. The papers had only reported a handful of deaths in the last week, which was an amazingly low number for Sunnydale, and only three of them had been suspicious. It was lucky that her first time out was going to be easy. 

Hearing a twig snap, Hael whirled around, stake raised, and smiled when she saw a vampire step into the moonlight. He was clearly newly-risen, with dirt still stuck on his funeral clothes and matted in his hair, and he’d not yet figured out how to change his face back to human. He bared his fangs at her and hissed, yellow eyes filled with hunger. 

Hael braced herself in a fighting stance and waited. The vampire charged. 

A strange sense of calm came over her, as it always did when she was facing one of the undead. She dodged the man’s punches easily, making sure to steer clear of his lethal teeth as they danced together in the moonlight. The man was clearly full of hunger, all snarls and snaps and howls, but Hael stayed silent, unwilling to distract herself with talk. Her heart hammered in her chest as she fought, landing blow after blow to the vampire’s head and chest. Her breathing was harsh and shallow, and she could feel adrenaline running through her veins when the vampire’s teeth closed an inch away from her ear. She countered by slamming her palm into his nose, and smiled when she heard the satisfying crunch of bone snapping. 

It was the best high in the world, fighting for her life. 

The vampire rushed her again, but Hael was ready. Bracing her feet, she grabbed the creature and used its own momentum to flip it and slam it onto the ground. After that all it took was a little jump and a shove of her stake and he was dust under her, dead and gone for real. 

Panting, Hael got to her feet and brushed the dust off of her sweater, freezing when she heard someone clapping slowly behind her. 

“Well done,” said a strong, male voice. Hael turned around and saw a young man leaning against a mausoleum. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a neat, square jaw, short, dark hair, and eyes that twinkled in the moonlight. Dressed in dirt-smeared blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket, he looked every bit like a human deviant that would hang out in a graveyard. 

“You didn’t see anything weird,” Hael said quickly. Bobby had never told her what to do if a civilian saw her stake a vampire. But then, Hael wasn’t so sure that the man in front of her was actually human. While the people of Sunnydale were mostly willingly blind to the strange things that happened in town, most of them were also smart enough to not hang around graveyards at night. 

The man sniffed the air and smiled. “Look at that, a little slayer. Meg, did you hear me? We’ve got a little slayer.”

“I heard you the first time, brother,” said a female voice. Hael felt her heart jump into her throat when a dark-haired woman glided from the shadows and leaned against the man. The woman, who Hael assumed was named Meg, had dark hair that flowed to the middle of her back in soft curls. Her face was round and pleasant, her body thick but strong looking, and her lips were curved into a slight smile. She was dressed almost identical to the man, in dark jeans and a leather jacket. Her top was purple, though, giving her a bit more color. She tilted her head at Hael and narrowed her eyes. “Tell me, littlest slayer, how long have you been the chosen one?”

Hael felt her hands began to shake. She gripped her stake as tightly as she could in an effort to stop them, but it did not work. The two creatures in front of her were definitely not human, and were definitely old if they knew who she was. 

This was more dangerous than she thought. 

Meg quirked an eyebrow at her. “She’s not talking, brother. I think you’re scaring her.”

“She’s a slayer, sister. Vampires don’t scare her,” the man said. He smiled at Hael. “Do I scare you, little girl?”

Hael shook her head, but took another step back. Taking on a fledging by herself was one thing. Taking on two vampires that were clearly very old was another. The very first piece of advice that Bobby had ever given her sprung to her mind. 

“Now, the books and other watchers and everything won’t tell you this, because they don’t believe in it,” he’d said. “But, sometimes, it’s best to run away and live to fight another day.”

Hael took another slow step back. The vampires in front of her just watched. 

“You know, Tom, I’m feeling a bit hungry, and since the littlest slayer over here isn’t answering our questions, maybe we’d best eliminate her,” Meg mused. Hael watched as the woman’s fingers crept up her brother’s shoulder. Tom shrugged at Hael, as if asking her what he was supposed to do, then sighed. 

He raised his hand and stroked Meg’s cheek. “Sister, you are simply insatiable. You’d think that you’d have calmed down after two thousand years.”

Meg smiled. “Never. Shall we hunt?”

“I think we shall,” Tom said. With that, he bent down and kissed Meg on the mouth. Hael momentarily forgot about escaping and wrinkled her nose in disgust. The vampires had called each other brother and sister, and while she knew that some tended to do that if they had the same sire, and that they probably weren’t really related, the idea still creeped her out. The kiss was noisy and messy, all wet smacking noises and low moans. 

Then the siblings stopped and turned to look at her. They’d changed their faces for the hunt, letting their demons out. Twin pairs of yellow eyes stared Hael down, bumps and ridges lined their foreheads, and long, sharp fangs glinted in the moonlight. 

Meg snarled at her. Tom simply smiled wide, showing off his teeth. 

“Run,” he whispered. 

Hael didn’t need to be told twice. She turned and bolted, heading for the cemetery gates. All she had to do was reach someone’s house and the vampires couldn’t get her. Bobby lived pretty close to the cemetery, she remembered. Only two blocks away. She had slayer strength and years of ballet and dance training on her side. She could make it. 

Hael wove around headstones and mausoleums and leapt over open graves, mind focused on reaching home. Her heart hammered in her burning chest, her legs ached, and her hair whipped around her face, having escaped the hasty braid she’d put it in. She heard the soft smack of her sneakers meeting pavement and stumbled as the ground under her changed from grass to smooth asphalt, signaling that she’d reached the cemetery’s main path. 

The momentary stumble was all it took. A strong pair of arms wrapped around her waist and threw her to the ground. Hael tried to stand, yelping when Tom’s heavy weight settled on top of her. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the ground, slamming her hand holding the stake into the grass again and again until she was yelping with pain and forced to let it go. 

Shaking, she tried in vain to buck him off, snarling back at him when he bared his teeth at her. 

“We’ve got a fighter!” he declared when his sister glided out of the shadows. She pouted at him. 

“You get to have all the fun. When is it my turn to play chase?”

“You can have the next one, honey,” Tom promised. He turned to Hael and smiled. “But I got her, so I call first bite.”

Hael swallowed hard and tried to steel herself. The moment she died, another slayer would be activated, and she really hoped that the new girl would find these incestuous sons of bitches and kill them. She spared a thought for her family, and how sad her mother would be when her daughter’s body was found the next morning. She hoped that they would leave her pretty much intact so she could have an open-coffin funeral. 

Meg squatted down and, with surprisingly gentle hands, pulled Hael’s sweater away from her neck. Hael squeezed her eyes shut and waited, sinking her teeth into her lip when she felt Tom’s warm breath on her neck. He smelled strongly of dirt and autumn leaves, and it was a strangely comforting smell. It reminded her of doing the yardwork with her siblings. 

The vampire stopped and sat up. “Phew, girl. _What_ did you eat today? You smell horrible.”

Stunned, Hael opened her eyes and gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

Tom leaned down and sniffed her again. “Anchovies? Really?”

“They’re good on pizza!” Hael defended. “I don’t have to explain what I eat to you! You’re a vampire! You drink _blood!”_

“I have standards about it,” he told her. “Meg, do you want this?”

“I don’t wanna walk around with anchovy breath,” Meg said. She stood and backed away, arms raised. “You eat it.”

Hael turned her head around to gape at Meg. Strangely, she was offended that the vampires didn’t want to eat her. Bobby had told her that slayer blood was considered a delicacy to vampires. “What? You said you wanted to eat a slayer! I’m right here!” 

Meg ignored her. “Just choke the life out of her and be done with it. New slayer rises. Hopefully one with better eating habits.”

“But the next one might not be as cute,” Tom pointed out. Absurdly, Hael felt her face flush at the vampire’s words. “Why don’t we wait a bit and try again?”

Meg sighed. “Fine. Hey, cutie, try to eat something a bit more appetizing for the next few weeks.”

Hael spit a glob of phlegm in Meg’s direction. The vampire just laughed. 

Tom’s face morphed back into its normal human features. Without missing a beat, he leaned down and planted a messy kiss on Hael’s lips. She grunted under him and tried to pull away, but his lips were firm on hers. And, oddly, they were soft. She relaxed into it after a moment. He was a good kisser, after all, having had a lot of time to practice. His mouth tasted like cherries, as if he’d been sucking on hard candy, and his teeth remained human. 

She was embarrassed when he pulled away. Tom only winked. 

“Later, littlest slayer. See you in a few.”

He was off of her and gone before she could blink. Trembling, Hael sat up and looked around the cemetery. It was perfectly quiet, as if no fight had ever taken place. 

“What the Hell?” she muttered to herself. Hael shook her head, stood up, and headed home. 

.

“And then, _and then,_ they said that I smelled _bad_ and that they didn’t want to eat me!” Hael ranted, pacing around the small bedroom that she shared with her sister, Anna. “Can you believe it? They didn’t want to eat me!”

“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Anna said, absently braiding her coppery hair. “Put some ice on your wrist.”

Hael waved her hand dismissively. “It’ll heal.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “So, you’re angry that two old, powerful, incestuous vampires didn’t drain you dry and leave your body in the cemetery for the police to find the morning?”

Hael paused. “No. I’m offended that they said I smelled bad.”

Anna chuckled. “Well, in that case, let’s go to bed. Not everyone has slayer powers and can run on three hours of sleep. School tomorrow.”

Hael sat down on her bed and ran her fingers over her blankets. Her mother had picked out everything in the room, and despite the fact that her daughters were sixteen and seventeen years old, she’d picked items that would be better suited to a small child’s room. Everything was pink and white, or had flowers on it. But, strangely, it made Hael feel safe, as if she was a little girl again and didn’t have to worry about things that went bump in the night. She pulled on a pair of pink sleep pants and a tank top and got ready to crawl into bed when she heard something rapping at her window. Anna heard it, too, and looked at her sister with wide, scared eyes. 

“I’ll get it,” Hael told her. Slipping over to the window, Hael pulled back the curtains, her mouth dropping open with shock. 

Meg was crouched on her roof, a smile on her face. 

“Hey, littlest slayer girl!” she said, giving Hael a cheery wave. “Oh, who’s the hot one in there with you? Are you being bad and sneaking girls into your room?”

Hael grabbed the window to open it, stopping when Anna grabbed her wrists. “Hael, no!”

“She can’t come in without an invitation. It’s fine,” Hael soothed. She slid the window open and put her hands on her hips. “What do you want, vampire?”

Meg gave her an exaggerated wince. “Oh, that hurts. Just wanted to pop in and say hi.” The vampire sniffed the air and grinned. “Hey, you showered! Now you smell much better. Delectable, even. Wanna come out here and give me a taste?”

Hael glared. “No. I should come out there and kill you. How did you even find me?”

“Tracked you,” Meg said casually. “Wasn’t hard, what with how you reeked. You have a nice little house here, full of good looking people.”

“Stay away from my family,” Hael warned. She leaned out the window slightly, just enough to stick her head into the night air. It was dangerous, but Meg didn’t seem to want to attack her. Not at that moment, anyway.

“Don’t worry. You’re the only one we’re interested in.” Meg smiled and leaned closer, so they were nose to nose, and leered. “Your blood will still taste all weird for a few days, anyway, but I bet there’s another part of you that tastes real sweet.”

“Don’t you talk dirty to me. I won’t listen to it,” Hael said firmly. Meg’s smile grew wider and she surged forward to press her lips against Hael’s. Her hand came to rest on the back of Hael’s head to keep her in the kiss, but Hael only relaxed into it. The vampire was as good at kissing as her brother was, maybe better at it, and she mouth tasted like peanut butter. 

Meg winked when she pulled away. “Just think about it. We could have some real fun, the three of us. We wouldn’t even kill you.”

Then Meg was gone, slipping into the shadows without a noise. Hael blinked and slid back into her room, gently closing the window. When she turned, Anna was gaping at her. 

“You’re supposed to _kill_ vampires. _Not_ fuck them!” she whispered angrily. Hael shrugged. 

“Well,” she said, “we best not tell Bobby about tonight’s adventure.”


End file.
